Pierluigi Paganini September 05, 2014

The Digital Citizen’s Alliance provided an updating to the study which analyzes online black markets, focusing on the sales of illegal drugs.

The cybercrime ecosystem has no limit, it is a prolific industry that evolves with time and is always full of new players as reported in a recent report published by the Digital Citizen’s Alliance. The study analyzed the online black markets focusing monitoring sales of illegal drugs on the Darknet.

After the seizure of Silk Road operated by the FBI, Agora has assumed a predominant position on the online black market together with the new version of the popular website Silk Road 2.

The investigators discovered that the total amount of drugs sold in the various black markets is greater than 16,000 items, the document also proposes data from smaller black markets and new marketplaces.

The document highlights a homogeneous growth of new marketplaces

“Illegal drug sales have moved out of the poorly lit alley and into an equally shadowy, dangerous place – the Darknet. ” “Digital Citizens Alliance investigators track the numbers of illegal and dangerous drugs found on the most popular Darknet Marketplaces. The first report, “Busted, but Not Broken: The State of Silk Road and the Darknet Marketplaces“, was published in April 2014. Below is the latest listings on the sites we looked at last April as well as a few others that have joined the list.” states the report.

The rapid rise of the Agora black market was advantaged by problems faces by other marketplaces, beginning on December 9, Silk Road 2.0, Pandora Openmarket, and Tormarket were hit by DDOS attack that shut down access to the websites.  The Pandora Openmarket also suffered a serious hack which causes the loss of a substantial amount of bitcoin.

“Agora and Evolution Marketplace have enjoyed tremendous growth with Agora “primed to overtake Silk Road 2.0 as the largest Darknet Marketplace based on total number of drugs listed,” the report said.”

The updating to the previous study of the Digital Citizen’s Alliance on the evolution of the black markets was issued on August 22, 2014, the investigator also observed the shut down of Dark Bay marketplace and the born of a new website, the Andromeda Market, which has been characterized by a large growth. Within the new black markets Cloud 9 and Hydra Marketplace are the two marketplaces with the greatest growth.

Pierluigi Paganini

(Security Affairs – Black market, cybercrime)

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